Brian Lane

Growing up, I heard David’s anointing in 1 Samuel 16 preached as if he were unloved or despised by his father. But rereading, I’m not sure the text actually says that.

The prophet Samuel shows up suddenly and unexpectedly at a time when the region is in chaos. David is far away tending sheep, doing necessary and faithful work for the family. Jesse may not have intentionally excluded him; they just did not think to bring him in until all the obvious options were exhausted because he was far away and his job mattered.

That feels more familiar to me than outright rejection and perhaps more true to biblical theology than Disney step-parents' storytelling. We are often more wounded by the incidental realities of life than by intentional malicious harm.

I am grateful to not have much childhood trauma, and yet I still wrestle with insecurity. I still have moments of deep self-doubt, even though I have been loved well. It’s not intentional, but the slow erosion of a broken world.

Maybe some of our insecurity does not come from being hated or abused, but simply from feeling ordinary, unnoticed, or “not the first choice.” Perhaps some of our self-doubt was unintended and never actually meant for us.

Many people carry deep wounds from intentional hurt, and I do not want to minimize that. But sometimes life circumstances quietly teach us to internalize rejection that was never actually spoken over us. We focus on where we were overlooked instead of where we are already loved and valued.

Whether you buy my interpretation of David’s anointing or not, the Good News of Jesus, a millennium later, reminds us that our value is not determined by whether we were the obvious choice in the room, but by the God who sees us, calls us, and moves toward us.

My point is that we are always more valuable than we have internalized.